Sobering Statistics:
High-risk behaviors compromise emotional well-being, physical health, peer and familial relationships, and performance in school:
- Physical inactivity among young people has contributed to an epidemic of childhood obesity. The percentage of young people who are overweight has more than doubled in the past 20 years. Among 5 to 15-year-old children, 60 percent have at least one and 27 percent have two or more risk factors for cardiovascular disease (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education, 2000).
- Approximately 20 percent of young people ages 9-17 are diagnosed with a mental disorder. A subset of 9-13 percent experiences a serious emotional disturbance. Most (70 percent) school-age children with a diagnosable mental disorder do not receive any mental health services (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999).
- About 80 percent of tobacco users begin before the age of 18; about 5 million children now under age 18 will die prematurely as adults because they began to smoke cigarettes during adolescence. Smoking among U.S. high school students increased from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 34.8 percent in 1999 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October, 2000).
- By eight grade, 52 percent of young people have consumed alcohol (more than just a few sips); by the end of high school, the number rises to 80 percent. Prevalence rates for marijuana use among youth in grades 8, 10, and 12 are 17 percent, 32 percent, and 38 percent, respectively (Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 2000).
- Approximately half of all high school students have had sexual intercourse, and 16.2 percent have had sex with four or more partners. Among sexually active youth, more than 40 percent did not use a condom during last sexual intercourse (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000).
- Approximately 40,000 new HIV infections occur in the United States every year, and half of those being infected are young people between the ages of 13 and 24 (Office of National AIDS Policy, 2000).
- In 1999, 35.7 percent of high school students had participated in a physical fight and, during the month preceding survey administration, 17.3 percent had carried a weapon (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000).
Health and learning are profoundly connected.
- One child in four – approximately 10 million – is at risk of school failure due to social, emotional, and/or physical health problems. Every school day, more than 3,000 students drop out of high school (Dryfoos, 1998).
- Students with serious emotional disturbances fail more classes, miss more days of school, have lower grades and retention levels, and have higher drop-out rates than students without such problems (Woodruff et al., 1999).
- Asthma is the most common chronic illness among children, and the leading cause of absenteeism. Combined with allergic rhinitis, it accounts for more than 8 million lost days of school every year (Martella, 2001).
- The overall death rate for those with less than 12 years of education is more than twice that for people with more education (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2000).